Strange cellphone issues.

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Strange cellphone issues.

fishandchips

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#243173 29-Nov-2018 11:35

Hi All,

I have a strange one. My wife's phone (Samsung J5 Prime) has started playing up as of late yesterday afternoon. It is receiving text messages but can not send, and it can make calls but not receive them. We get nice 4G coverage were we live and also were my wife works.

I have done the normal restart the phone, I have searched for coverage and selected the Spark network again. Check settings but nothing seems to work. Was working perfectly fine in the morning. I will try switch it to 3G or lower tonight to see if that helps. My Spark phone works perfectly fine as well.

Any thoughts?

Cheers

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#2136546 29-Nov-2018 11:48

3G or lower? Spark has zero 2G network

John

wellygary

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#2136551 29-Nov-2018 12:01

+ Spark don't do VoLTE so all voice traffic is 3g, ( I think SMS is still done via 3G too...)

OTT services will use 4G data though

hio77

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#2136586 29-Nov-2018 12:57

This does sound like a device issue.

Lock down to 3G and see how that goes.

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Hibino

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#2137975 2-Dec-2018 00:45

My phone has the same problem last Friday, I can make phone calls to my friend but my friend can not reach me, she said there is no ringing tone after dialed my number and totally silence then hangs up. But I didn't test further.

After seeing the post I just tested with my wife's phone, I called her mobile 6 times and used her mobile call me 6 times, I reached her mobile 2 times and she only reached me 1 time. I got voice mail 1 time and other 3 times totally silence then hangs up. She got to voice mail 1 times and totally silence 4 times.

Hmmm.... Not sure what happened, as I typing, my cellphone just lost all signal.... And after 2-3 minutes signal came back...

Both my wife's phone and my phone is missing the 4g B28 (700 APT) band but it shouldn't matter since at home we only able to get 3g(B1 (2100) and B5 (850) are supported by our phone) signal and 4g only reachable at city.

I'll see what happens tomorrow.

Linux

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#2137981 2-Dec-2018 05:17

FYI on Spark 3G B2100 is getting refarmed to 4G 2100Mhz

John

Hibino

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#2138088 2-Dec-2018 12:23

There must something weird happened.

I tried call a plumber 20 minutes ago but found the phone does not ring and hangs up after 30 seconds. So I found a random 0800 number and keep calling this number for testing. I can only get through 1 or 2 times in 10 calls.

I thought this might because the new phone I bought 2 months ago(no problems before last Friday), so I changed to my old phone which I used for 3 years and haven't had this problem before, but it is the same result.

I live in Dunedin according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spark_New_Zealand_Mobile and https://www.spark.co.nz/help/mobile-data/manage/4g/ here I should get 3G(GSM) at 850/2100, 4G(UMTS) at B3(1800 +) and B28(700 APT)

So here is the testing results(wifi off)

Old phone, which I used on Spark for 3 years, nothing this happened before:

Supported network:

GSM 850/900/1800/1900,

UMTS B1(2100), B2(1900) B4(1700/2100 AWS 1), B5(850), B6(850 Japan), B8(900 GSM)

LTE B1(2100), B2(1900 PCS), B3(1800 +), B4(1700/2100 AWS 1), B5(850), B7(2600), B8(900), B12(700 ac), B17(700 bc), B20(800 DD), B25(1900 +), B28(700 APT), B40(TD 2300)

1. When set the phone to "GSM auto (PRL)" forcing to use 3G network:

Phone info shows "Data Network Type: HSPAP", "Voice Network Type: Unknown"

Network: Can browse the internet with good speed

Phone call: Can not make any phone calls

2. When set the phone to "LTE/UMTS auto (PRL)":

Phone info shows "Data Network Type: 4G", "Voice Network Type: LTE"

Network: Can browse the internet with good speed

Phone call: tried few times not getting through just totally silence and hangs up after about 30 seconds, but the signal icon changes from 4G to H after making the call, and debug info changed to "Data Network Type: HSPA", "Voice Network Type UMTS"

New Phone, had since September, and having this problem since last Friday:

Supported Network:

GSM 850/900/1800/1900,

UMTS B1(2100), B2(1900) B4(1700/2100 AWS 1), B5(850), B8(900 GSM)

LTE B1(2100), B2(1900 PCS), B3(1800 +), B4(1700/2100 AWS 1), B5(850), B8(900), B12(700 ac), B13(700 c), B17(700 bc), B20(800 DD), B25(1900 +), B26(850 +), B41(TD 2500)

1. When set the phone to "GSM auto (PRL)" forcing to use 3G network:

Phone info shows "Data Network Type: HSPAP", "Voice Network Type: UMTS"

Internet: Can browse the internet with good speed

Phone call: First 2 calls got through but after that just silence and hangs up

2. When set the phone to "LTE/UMTS auto (PRL)":

Phone info shows "Data Network Type: LTE", "Voice Network Type: LTE"

Internet: Can browse the internet with good speed

Phone call: got through 1 time but after that just silence and hangs up. The signal icon changes from LTE to 3G after making the call, and debug info changed to "Data Network Type: HSPA", "Voice Network Type UMTS"

During the test my phone totally lost signal several times and will come back after few minutes.

I think the test above makes none sense now... since every time I do it I got different result, can or can not get internet, can or can not make phone call, totally random :-(

Behodar

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#2138090 2-Dec-2018 12:28

Hibino: I should get 3G(GSM) at 850/2100, 4G(UMTS) at B3(1800 +) and B28(700 APT)

3G is UMTS and 4G is LTE. Spark doesn't have any GSM (2G).

With that said, both phones support UMTS at 850 and 2100, so they should both work anywhere in Spark coverage.

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Aredwood

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#2138093 2-Dec-2018 12:34

Spark does not have a GSM network. (Vodafone are the only company that operate a GSM network in NZ)

Set your phone to UMTS to force it to 3G only. Note that Spark are converting their 3G 2100MHZ to 4G. So your phone needs to support 3G (UMTS) 850MHz to work properly on Spark.

Hibino

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#2138102 2-Dec-2018 13:11

Thanks for the reply.

When dialing *#*#4636#*#* into the phone info menu there is no option to force "UMTS only", but setting it to "GSM auto (PRL)" does force the phone only connect to 3G network(since there is no 2G), which the phone will show "Data Network Type: HSPAP", "Voice Network Type: UMTS". But the problem still there, and totally random.

I just found when my phone close to a speaker it interference the speaker every 5-10 seconds, this doesn't happen before when I connected to a wifi. Feels like the cellphone network is not stable and it is constantly trying to connect to the cellphone network.

hio77

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#2138104 2-Dec-2018 13:13

If you are getting issues with calls not terminating like you describe. Please touch base with the front line.

They will go through basics with you and have the network folk look into those particular examples for root cause.

This does not seem to be related to 2100 being switch off.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Hibino

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#2138118 2-Dec-2018 13:57

Ok, I just talked to few neighbor on Spark network and confirm that this is not a phone issue. They all having this problem since last Friday, the phone does not ring after dial and hangs up or directly goes to voice mail. They all had their phone few years and no one had changed any settings on the phone(some of them are old people not into tech stuff). One of them told me a lot of people at her work is having this issue recent 2 days.

I guess I'll just wait and see when the service will back to normal then, since it is effecting a lot of people in Dunedin(not sure where is OP located) it should be noted by Spark somehow

hio77

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#2138119 2-Dec-2018 13:58

Hibino:

Ok, I just talked to few neighbor on Spark network and confirm that this is not a phone issue. They all having this problem since last Friday, the phone does not ring after dial and hangs up or directly goes to voice mail. They all had their phone few years and no one had changed any settings on the phone(some of them are old people not into tech stuff). One of them told me a lot of people at her work is having this issue recent 2 days.

I guess I'll just wait and see when the service will back to normal then, since it is effecting a lot of people in Dunedin(not sure where is OP located) it should be noted by Spark somehow

Please call through (or chat) and log this fault.

you have very detailed examples which the team would absolutely love to have their hands on.

#include <std_disclaimer>

Any comments made are personal opinion and do not reflect directly on the position my current or past employers may have.

Hibino

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#2138121 2-Dec-2018 14:05

hio77:

Please call through (or chat) and log this fault.

you have very detailed examples which the team would absolutely love to have their hands on.

Thank you hio77, I will do later, now has to go to the city for Dunedin Christmas Parade before all carpark is taken.

Emmm... I guess there will be a lot of Spark user complaining at the Parade since they can't make phone calls to find each other...

Hibino

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#2138194 2-Dec-2018 17:18

Just back from the parade, there is a Spark store near where I stand so I went in and asked one of the staff if he knows something. He said Spark definitely aware this issue, there is something wrong with the broadcasting tower and someone is already working on it for a while now. He also said there is no ETA when it can be fixed, and might take quite a while.

Well... I guess Spark users in Dunedin will just have to use wifi for communication for a few more days.

BTW, how come this outage is not shown on Spark's outage page, since Spark is already know it and is working on it?

Linux

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#2138195 2-Dec-2018 17:22

It sounds like a single site issue so will only impact customers in that location it's not like it's impacting a complete town

John

Edit: Not every single site issue would be listed on Sparks website I suspect only major outages

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